More and more products are being implemented as clusters which in many cases exist in a larger multi-network context. For example, clusters of computers running applications are interconnected using Ethernet and communicate with storage arrays using Fiber Channel. In some cases, the arrays themselves are clusters that are interconnected by a private network.
The advent of the Adaptive Enterprise in technical and commercial computing and the StorageWorks Grid in storage significantly increases the flexibility customers have when configuring new applications and the associated storage. This flexibility in turn creates a need for tools to guide the placement of both data and functionality across nodes in multi-network clusters. Heretofore this task was performed manually or in highly constrained patterns. 